Dr. Daniel Pompa, a doctor and content creator, has gone viral after sharing what he considers to be the kitchen’s “biggest” bacterial spreader.
“Biggest bacterial spreader in your kitchen, I’m going to show you,” he said. “And every one of you are doing it, yeah. It leads to sickness and gut problems. And I’ll tell you, it’s a big one. It’s not a small one.”
He then proceeded to show viewers a blue sponge in the kitchen sink. He then demonstrated washing a glass with the sponge.
“What I’m showing you, these guys are bacterial spreaders, all these little nooks and crannies,” he continued. “Every time you pick up a glass and do this, you’re spreading bacteria. And the older these get, the worse they become.”
According to Dr. Pompa, it’s a “different story” if you’re switching out the sponge every one to two days. “But that’s not what we do, is it?” he says.
He then went on to explain that trying to sterilize the sponges in the dishwasher won’t work because the germs “get protected in these little nooks and crannies.”
To conclude, he recommended a silicone device to wash dishes, which he claims can be sterilized in the dishwasher.
For the most part, commenters disagreed with Dr. Pompa. Many pointed out that they reused their kitchen sponges without issue, with one saying, “Our guts are strong.”
While another claimed, “There’s no way bacteria or germs can survive in dishwasher detergent.”
A third accused him of spreading “false information.”
The video has amassed 965,400 views as of Sunday morning.
Dr. Pompa didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via TikTok comment and Instagram direct message.
Are kitchen sponges sanitary?
A 2022 research from Norway corroborates Dr. Pompa’s claim. Trond Møretrø, a research scientist involved with the study, told CNN that “salmonella and other bacteria grow and survive better in sponges than in brushes, the reason is that sponges in daily use never dry up.”
“A single sponge can harbor a higher number of bacteria than there are people on Earth,” he added. “The sponge is humid and accumulates food residues which are also food for bacteria, leading to rapid growth of bacteria.”
The most concerning facet of the study was that cleaning the sponges made no difference in terms of the amount of bacteria that grew on them.
“That the way the consumers used their sponges did not matter much regarding growth of bacteria,” he concluded. “It is very difficult for consumers to avoid bacterial growth in the sponges as long as the sponges are not replaced daily.”
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
